Acuspeed

Got an odd-ball question here.

Would it be a decidedly bad idea form me to buy new lower suspension arms that have the stock type rubber bushings in them when the rest of my rear suspension (upper arms and Watts links) have uerathane bushings in them?

The reason I ask is this -- I have recently decided to replace all my bushings as they were shot, but the ones in the lower links do not want to squeeze in far enough to fit onto the car again. Also, the lower links are pretty old, and when I burned the old bushings out and cleaned them up, a fair amount of metal fell away (rusted I guess) from out of the bushing hole and the holes are no longer round and smooth, but rather oddly shaped and ... unsmooth I guess.

Input appreciated.

Denny

Well, Partner,
I imagine that new links and bushings, though they be rubber, would feel a heck of a lot better than beaten up bushings inside oblong housings. Can't you put urethane in to the new links? I haven't worked on the rear suspensions of my two, except to replace rear shocks on my GSL. I'd sure be very tempted to "finish the job" with urethane, but probably there isn't that much of a performance difference being that everything else is urethane....

Let us know what you decide, eh?

Denny, from the 'ol corncrib

P.O.S. Racing

How much material fell out? How out of round is the hole? Were the arms already rusted up past the point of no return? Did you melt the steel in the arms when you were torching out the bushings or Thereby deforming the bushing hole?

Would imagine the bushings would be much happier in a round hole, no matter what material you plan to use since this is a pivot point.

Have had some success with greasing up the OEM bushing to get it to go back in the car, you want these bushings to fit tight, otherwise you aren’t actually bushing anything.

From my experience the urethane tends to go in easier, but you can use the OEM style to fit with some positive motivation.

Acuspeed

A fair amount. It was basically rusted away, and enough fell out to pretty seriously deform the hole.

It's not so much out of round in an oblong sense as it is mis-shapen having multiple flat spots/jagged type areas. It almost looks like some funky type of bolt belongs in it now, if that makes sense.

Actually, the car has been undercoated a couple of times and has never seen the winter salt/slush. Aside from the rusted inside diameter, the links themselves are in great shape and still covered in rust proofing gunk.

I don't think so. I was trying to use as little heat as possible and still burn out the old bushings. I used the same technique for the upper links and the Watts links, and they turned out just fine. I think the problem w/the lower links was pre-existing.

I got to thinking about the shape of the hole as well, and how that may adversly effect the link. I used quite a bit of grease, both to get the bushings to fit in the links and to get the links to fit onto the car again. All the other links went in great, just these dag-um lower links aren't cooperating. I used a little extra elbow grease and that only started ripping up the bushing some and got me very little forward progress, so I decided to stop and consider buying new links.

I think what I may do is buy new lower links and (assuming they come w/bushings installed), fit them on the rear of the car. I will attempt to salvage the ureathane bushings from the old lower links and keep them incase the car starts acting funky back there with the somewhat mis-matched bushings. At least both lower links will have rubber type bushings, so perhaps that will even things out enough to keep it from being funky...

P.O.S. Racing

Could you hone out the holes? Can anyone out their put a set of calipers on them to see what the original diameter is.

Who's bushings were you using? Wonder if they were slightly out of tolerance.